As “Bigger and Brighter” explodes from minimal chill-step into a bigger and brighter (ha!) electro-pop soundscape, you realize that what you thought might be another bunch of ambient popsters are actually a lot smarter and a lot more dynamic than you first thought. Not only is this opener a clever start, but it is also the launch pad for a very eclectic, artistic, and unique album, and who couldn’t do with some of that in their lives right now?
Flo Crowe & The Dilemmas’ eponymous debut is a heady blend of electro-rock, dance groove, and folktronica, but also a celebration of the voice in modern music. Choral finesse has always been found in classical music, sometimes in lush Laurel Canyon-infused singer-songwriters, and perhaps in the more produced end of folk; now it is pop’s turn to bask in the sunlight of serene vocal sonics.
Take “See Saw”, a song where beat and riffs merely punctuate much of the time, leaving the triple vocal threat of Flo Crowe, Cerys Wilcox and Paige Mullin to weave voicescapes every bit as sophisticated as the music that ebbs and flows around them.
“Anti Sociable” is a gospel prayer remade for the contemporary pop audience, “When The Sun Beats Down” is sassy, soulful and ever so seductive, and “My Soliloquy” blends simple folk lines with 60s doo-wop girl band groove, a sonic unpredictability, neo-gregorian chant and classical grace, to build the most cutting-edge dance floor hustle you will have ever heard.
I probably say things like “this is the best record I have heard all year” far too often, but this time I mean it.
